[bksvol-discuss] Concerns About A Book On Step 1

From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx>

To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:36:04 -0400

Hi, everyone. Yesterday Elizabeth let us know that the book Chef
M.D.'s Big Book of Culinary Medicine, by JOHN LA PUMA and Rebecca
Powell needs a sighted validater. Guess what! The book is in kes
format. None of our sighted validaters can open it. This situation
frustrates me because this is the kind of book that will be passed
from blind volunteer to blind volunteer with no resolution. Why?
Because only blind people can open it! I'm especially frustrated
because Bookshare could resolve this easily with a policy change on
file formats or by providing a converter at the time of upload. There
are 11 more cookbooks like this, all in kes format. If sighted help is
needed, it won't happen with these books since they aren't rtf files.
Cookbooks are tough to scan and validate, and sighted help is usually
needed somewhere along the way. Sighted people *don't* have Kurzweil
because they don't need it, and it costs a thousand dollars. I'm not
trying to bash the submitter here. I'm saying that this situation
seems wasteful and silly to me. I know I can't change it, but it sure
would be nice if everyone were required to submit in rtf since that's
what all validaters can open and have to upload to Bookshare anyway.
(sigh) Ok, I'm going to go and get some coffee. Maybe I won't feel so
grumpy then.
--
Monica Willyard
Visit my blog at http://www.scannersguild.com
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